Proposing a complementary shape for the AQAL Matrix
(Real world situation - Today is the 2nd day of the Mumbai attacks 27.11.08)
I am not a scholar, a philosopher. I am not of native English tongue. This is not a standard presentation and it may even have very poor argument here and there. Still I feel the need to present this to you, in my own way, through my own declared limitations; I hope this letter reaches you in good health and in a fine disposition, so that you’ll read through it despite its shortcomings.
Asking that you excuse me for being this much presumptuous to adress you directly on these matters and feeling stupid to begin stating the obvious, here we go:
The shape of the AQAL matrix is a Cartesian and bidimensional form, this Cartesian form, although a practical analytical instrument, has been criticized in so many ways as an incomplete or inappropriate geometry for a great number of reasons. I will not go into this criticism here, other than say it exists. There have been proposals for different geometries, one of the most widely known may be Buckminster Fuller’s.
The efficacy of this square or cubic coordinates system leads to the feeling that the square matrix net is an appropriate way to catch the “what is reality” elusive fish. Still for many reasons this net does not seem to map appropriately the relationship of spatial points, and in many ways it can even be limiting our own reasoning of the observed world. To change geometries may sound ludicrous, or impractical and unnecessary for Integral Theory, still I would like to present an option for the AQAL matrix.
Without trying to mystify the matter this “vision” came to me this morning, half dreaming. I was, in my dream talking to a musician, and we were commenting on how digital music can sound harsh to the ears, and I was looking at the musical wave form or at its digital representation, a bunch of square things drawing a ladder that only resembles a living unbroken wave. A vertical pitch and a stop, flat space, another vertical pitch and another critical stop, and more flat horizontal space. Not flowing, instead a strange feeling of growth and rest, which in a sense is also a natural motion, but the broken serrated shapes felt wrong, not really music, but something like as if cyborgs trying o mimic feeling… Mr Data… Square geometry, technical simplified stuff that machines can understand. We on the other hand live within a different computer, if a computer at all. The bits here are immensely more complex, beyond zeros and ones, beyond the simple square mapping and math we came so far with. And yet all this immense “computing” is done without real motion, without real exchange, in a universe where fundamentally there is no within, nor without. Where Yin and Yang spring from the same Face.
We still have many questions on how something appears out of nothing, events, matter, people, coincidences. Our reasoning through process, our believing in discrete building blocks blinds us to the possibility that things (holons) appear not from being constructed, achieved or built exactly, but instead being vibrated into appearing. Desired, kept, nurtured and energized. It sounds like magical thinking, and new age mumbo jumbo, I know, but I am not in any “The Secret” take here. Too bad that the example I can come up with is not much better, so please bear with me. I think of that super fast hero, Flash, becoming say, the Taj Mahal, or sculpting it into existence by becoming the cloud of points that define its shape, vibrating so perfectly that even the collors of the gilden details show in the reflected light… Things (holons) are vibrated into existence on many levels of vibration, by the universe, by the “gods” that define ground rules of the local game (Gravity for instance), by us in co-creating within the given limitations of our localized relationship envelope (the I)
The current AQAL shape is at most a “2.5” dimensional shape, a flat surface that can be only vertically extruded “for nice”, but that still looks a bit ungracious and “unable to dance”, and also fragile. Cubes and squares, in Fuller’s critic are wasteful, and are not self supporting, their geometry does not brace well against itself – cubes are poor eggs. I know it sounds weird to talk geometry in integral theory, but how does it feel? All concepts of dimensionality are in a sense, illusory (Maya), but to me it feels the thinking of spatial relationships is not, for one knows it is constructed. Philosophically speaking, when thinking about how any dimensionality is possible, we reach the unthinkable when we try to reconcile the observation of outsides and insides with the impossibility of the existence of a final unitary universal membrane that is closed on itself… In and out are fundamentally non existent in a unitary universe. The argument for that being – When it “exploded” in what did the universe grow into? What “space” could have existed prior to the existence of anything? For we are talking non dual, original unitary creation of all of it, form and space… What can fold on itself and still have no reverse? Though topology! Not 3, nor 2 nor even 1, we live or our basic ground is a non dimensional point… I digress.
Fuller argues that the cube is an unnatural, wasteful shape because it maps the relationship between spatial points in a way that is not really logical, practical, or even mathematically sound. I don’t get his math, but if I can explain what Fuller theories fells like to me is that the basic, simplest, loops that (spatial) relationships form are triangular. Even Alan Watts argues beautifully in one of his recorded seminars on these relationships, that the observation of relative motion is only possible in a set of 3 spatial spheres, and the existence of 3 dimensions only appearing after a 4 sphere enters into scene. I think Jung also speaks of a Trinity that invites a 4th element. And I think Gurdjeff says something about a duality leading to a 3rd element (observation). So, I feel a more “real” 3d shape is that of the tetrahedron, it has volume, not in the “predictable” way a cube has, and it contains volume in a very economic and compact way, (a better processor) and its very shape allows for a kind of swiveling, and dancing and gracious connections that cubes would envy if they could envy or dance… A tetrahedron has all its surfaces in contact with one another and it unfolds simply and beautifully into its own shape a thing a cube can not do. A flat triangle is the matrix of a 3d tetrahedron, simple as that the membrane folds into itself making the inside and outside “real”.
For I don’t see, and I feel this need to see shapes and forms, how the flat and square AQAL matrix could contain the number of aspects proposed by integral theory. And I feel this is the little pyramid that can. This tetrahedron shape is more of an intuition than something that I have a great logical argument for, and truly as I already said I am not a scholar. Still I hope the strangeness of this presentation does not put you off, it may not if you look at the essential proposal.
The I is born in a (and from a) Relationship Envelope.
This womb is (it can be seen as) the triangular base of a tetrahedrical pyramid
From the triangular base (Natural Ground) 3 important leafs spring, for inevitably all these perspectives must appear simultaneously when the separate I springs into being.
The We leaf – personal (affective) relationship – interaction (Feeling) – Mirror
The He leaf – Observation of the behavior of a holon (Reason)
The Them leaf – Observation of the existence and relationship between many fragmentary holons (God Vision – Spirit)
The compound envelope created by the tetrahedrical enclosing is a given Landscape – that filters, creates or allows “in” what is real, it is the game rules, extent or reach of perspective, beliefs about reality, etc. This envelope exists within nothingness, the field of all possibilities, unreactive and luminous mind…
The proposed pyramid shape allows for Increased Perspectives, for now differently from the flat square AQAL matrix you also have contact points between all the leafs. Also it puts the “I” in the center of these perspectives.
When all that can be explored, lived or experienced within a given envelope is trough, when the cup is full, it bursts open to a new level, the new ground “I” being the integration of all those relationships. New Landscapes and New Worlds appear. Naturally it is not possible to say that the bubble bursting of this theoretical envelope happens only at some discrete, exact points, it happens constantly at every minor and major growth crisis. Nonetheless, in this model bubble bursting leads to integration without loss, increased volume, and wider perspectives, unfolding into the same basic leafs. Beginning again with I as a basis for the pyramid and the other 3 leafs being the direction of vertical growth. This vertical growth leads to the integrating “golden” tip of the pyramid, the saturation / explosion point of new growth.
Naturally as the original AQAL matrix this is a construct, not a final reality. An artistic rendering that I hope could be a practical symbol, or a tool for understanding and visualizing the many dimensions and aspects of integral growth.
Surely there would be much to do in presenting this triangular matrix with all “quadrants” (which would have to be renamed), levels, lines states and stages, and types and all else, it may not be practical to try, or even possible to accomplish much in doing so. It might be just some artistic delusion of mine for this need to represent the Integral Theory in palpable shape possibly comes more from my need to see something in order to understand it, which is something not always feasible. Like trying to engineer a perpetual motion engine.
Without academic training, or any sort of peer review, I am probably meddling with something way above my head. All of this might never reach your ears, or if it does, it could be something already heard and many times discarded, not worth considering, or even just curious but totally out of place. Still I sincerely hope this can somewhat be a real contribution and I offer it in this spirit.
Sincerely
Guga Casari
